Industry Practice - Session 14: Design Rights
Industry Practice - Design Rights
In this session, we looked at design rights. In the UK, designs are protected by three legal rights, all of which we will look at in more detail.
- Registered Designs
These give the owner a monopoly on their product design. For a limited period, others are not allowed to make, use or sell a product with the design used or incorporated.
- Unregistered Designs
- Artistic Copyright
Both of these rights arise automatically and will provide exclusive rights against copying, but due to the limitations of these rights, it is important and a standard of any industry to register designs whenever possible.
Registered Designs
Oury Clark (2025) states that registered design registration initially lasts for 5 years, but can be renewed for up to 25 years. This differs to unregistered designs, which last for a period of 10 years from the end of the year of the first sale of the product. Overall though, this can be subject to an overall maximum of 15 years from the end of the year instead, but only if the product didn't sell at all within the first 5 years. Instead of using the date of the first sale, it uses the date of design instead.
They go on to state the benefits of design registration, and that "A product’s design features can be synonymous with the branding and image of a business and can become a core asset with monetary value. By way of example, Apple’s range of “I” products display distinctive designs that separate their products from other mp3 players, mobile phones or tablets on the market.
A registered design in the UK gives the holder the exclusive right to make, offer, market, import, export, use or stock any product to which the design has been applied, or is incorporated.
It also provides a right to take legal action against others who might be infringing the design, and to claim damages for any infringement that occurs, which has an added deterrent effect."
A registered design in the UK gives the holder the exclusive right to make, offer, market, import, export, use or stock any product to which the design has been applied, or is incorporated.
It also provides a right to take legal action against others who might be infringing the design, and to claim damages for any infringement that occurs, which has an added deterrent effect."
- User interfaces
- Character Design
These two are the most prominent, with the highest amount of registered designs. However, in terms of character designs, care should be taken with character likenesses due to the possibility of the legal system favouring rights holders.
One of the most famous examples is Lindsey Lohan suing the developers of Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games 2013) for the character Lacey Jonas, who appears on the front cover of the game and bears a strong similarity to Lindsey Lohan.
NDAs
NDAs are legal contracts that can control what an individual/group can talk about regarding a subject. These can be used to keep asset development a secret when talking to others. They can control where team members can discuss the work they did toward your games as well.
Extra Ren'Py Stuff
near the end of the session, we looked at technical requirements for background and character sprites in Ren'Py. This was brief, but important for understanding what format our assets need to be in. For character sprites, these are expected to be in PNG or WEBP format to be compatible. Background art should be a JPG, JPEG, PNG, or WEBP file. Backgrounds are normally 1280x720, but in the case of going for higher resolution, I think we plan to make our backgrounds 1920x1080.
Kit Roberts, 2023. Lindsay Lohan tried to sue Rockstar Games for character that looked like her [online]. UNILAD. Available at: https://www.unilad.com/celebrity/news/lindsay-lohan-grand-theft-auto-five-lawsuit-110273-20230907 [Accessed 15 February 2025]
Rockstar Games, 2013. Grand Theft Auto V [Video Game]. Rockstar Games. New York City, USA. Available at: https://www.rockstargames.com/gta-v [Accessed 15 February 2025]
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